Nothing Really Ends
by Lady Devonna
Summary: A sequel to the Sorcerer Hunter's manga (never saw the anime). Marron is experiencing severe depression when a face from his past reemerges and havoc ensues. MarronOC, but not a self insertion.
1. Default Chapter

Marron Glace sighed as he meandered through the forest outside ex- Sorcerer Hunter's Town. Two years had passed since Mama's great and noble sacrifice that brought peace to the torn world. Two years since Carrot and Tira's wedding, since regaining his beloved mother, since every ounce of excitement, interest, and activity had vacated his life.  
  
Always the quiet, powerful one. A few moments of worry, vague intensity, and brotherly/friendly concern were all he could remember letting himself show since childhood. Lately, though, he couldn't help it. Emotions would spill out for no real reason. He overreacted to everything, and even found himself crying at night with no provocation. For the first time he remembered, he'd fought with Carrot that morning. Had anyone else been acting so oddly, the town would have been in uproar, but Marron had fallen so far from notice not even his family really knew him any more.  
  
With a heavy, tragic sigh, he sat down heavily on a fallen tree and tried to decide exactly what was wrong with him, aside from sheer boredom.  
  
The sense of abandonment he'd felt at Carrot's and Tira's wedding probably figured in, though he'd thought the scars had closed over that wound; the loss of Mama and Grampa was certainly real, but when he really stopped to think the deciding factor was his loss of self. He didn't know himself any more. He had no purpose, was full of feelings he couldn't explain but completely empty at the same time, no longer drew any special enjoyment from much of anything.  
  
Rather pathetically, he toyed with the dagger at his belt, but left it alone. Whatever happened, he refused to even consider suicide. So there.  
  
Gradually, as laid back against the log, he noticed a complete lack of his usual vague longing for Gateau's company. Since the breakup-well, they'd never been "together," so it wasn't exactly a breakup-Marron had felt sort of generally drained. The fact that the only attraction Gateau had was also being gay didn't help much. As a friend, he was fine, but as a lover, a muscle-bound, oversexed, possessive thickhead was really the last thing the younger Glace wanted. Still, an intricate combination of sexual frustration and loneliness left its mark.  
  
So what do I want, Marron wondered as the thought hit him. What the hell do I want? For the sorcerers to return? For Carrot to leave Tira and go back to just loving me? That Gateau was thin, sweet, not quite so generically handsome, and smart?  
  
Croissant.  
  
The name came so suddenly to his mind that he couldn't place it for a moment. Then he remembered a thin, delicate face. Enormous purple eyes, the kind of eyes that combine the innocence of earliest childhood and the sorrow of the ages. Long, flyaway hair, black as midnight and shimmering with stars of its own. Smooth, deathly pale cheeks and slim, white hands. Gateau's only words of wisdom to date sliced through the wavering memory. "That which is beautiful transcends the sexes." Only it wasn't sexes, it was reality. Croissant, the young parsoner he hadn't been able to save those years ago, was truly a creature from beyond this world.  
  
Only then did he realize how ridiculous he was being, but Marron was never one for denial. I'm in love with a relative stronger. who happens to be dead. thanks to me.  
  
At least, he thought it was love. Never having experienced the romantic side of the emotion, Marron wasn't sure. He tried to remember everything he could about Croissant, who all but his subconscious had mostly forgotten until this very moment.  
  
Croissant had lived in a large city completely and cruelly dominated by the local sorcerer. While most of the young men had been persuaded or coerced into joining the force working on the elaborate castle Artichoke (the sorcerer) was having built. He was so small he could pass for a child or an invalid, whichever was most useful at the moment. And, having lived on his wits and luck all his life as an abandoned orphan, he was very good at telling exactly what would be useful for any given situation. When Marron, Carrot, and Tira had arrived, six years ago, they'd nearly been seized immediately by Artichoke's mercenaries, and only a whispered "Over here!" had saved them from having to fight a battle that would have killed several innocent bystanders on the crowded streets and lost them the element of surprise. Carrot thought their rescuer was gorgeous until he realized Croissant was male (the cloak he was wearing sort of bunched up over the chest), then declared the heroic youth a pansy and sulked when Tira and Marron decided they would stay with him in the decrepit warehouse he called home. So far from a pansy was the rogue he insisted on guiding the sorcerer hunters to Artichoke's temporary quarters and letting them in. Defying strict instructions to stay out of danger, he followed them into the sorcerer's chamber and saved all their lives by absorbing a spell of general destruction just as it left Artichoke's hands. The power rebounded on the caster, but also the building itself. A hasty spell by Marron shielded his brother and Tira, and should have saved Croissant, but something went wrong. The rubble of the collapsed house was imposable for three to dig through, and none of the city's inhabitants were at all interested in digging out the corpses of their oppressor and an unknown brat, as the ungracious mayor said.  
  
Marron had suffered terrible guilt for a few months, though he was good at hiding it, and then had let Croissant slide into the shadow world of memory as a pleasant but rather depressing figment of recall (a realm far chancier than imagination). Why he would resurface now, and such turbulent emotions with him? 


	2. Chapter 2 This will be a trend I suck at...

Deciding to sleep on it, even though it was about noon, Marron skulked home. Actually, he was never sure where he lived nowadays, but for the last few weeks he'd been sleeping in his parents' house but usually eating at Éclair's (who was starting to refer to herself as Danub at odd intervals, to her brother's distress, something he found ominously comforting) and spending most auxiliary time at Carrot and Tira's place.  
  
Having decided on his childhood home (ominously uncomforting of late), he returned to find the place in a general uproar. Two years before, this would have been perfectly normal, but he'd gotten out of the habit of being run over by Chocolate, without batting an eyelash. Snagging his mother (the one thing he had adjusted to was the fact that she was back and inhabiting the body of a teenage girl), he barely had to raise a quizzical eyebrow to get an answer.  
  
"You know how everyone's been restless lately," she said briskly, hurling a nearby candlestick at Carrot, who seemed to have zoned out. He'd been doing that lately. "Sorcerer Hunters are almost a different species, you know. We've been so long accustomed to constant excitement, danger, righteous indignation. In short, we're all adrenaline addicts. It was undeniably for the good of the world that the sorcerers' powers were destroyed, but not so much for us."  
  
Marron sighed heavily. Apparently his rapport with his mother wasn't so indestructible as he'd thought, though some part of him knew it was unreasonable to expect the poor woman to read his mind. "So what's going on?"  
  
"Your father's decided we're all going to be vigilantes, essentially." Apricot looked slightly annoyed, but mostly excited. "After all, evil isn't linked specially to magic. And with our fighting skills, there are all sorts of opportunities."  
  
"So Father's made a spontaneous decision to make us all mercenaries, without consulting anyone, with Tira pregnant, and." He realized there wasn't actually anything else, and found himself anticipating the sudden transformation with no small pleasure himself. After all, hadn't he just been wanting something to happen?  
  
Well, no, I was lusting after a dead kid.He shook off the thought, jumped over Chocolate (who, he'd just remembered, was supposed to be in the west studying), and hauled himself up to the attic. It occurred to him, as every time he got up the ladder and adjusted to the dim light, that no one had noticed he was sleeping on Carrot's old cloak with his spare robe under his head for a pillow. Sad and abandoned as that generally made him feel, it made packing easy. There was also the little leather bag that contained the now useless spell cards he kept as mementos, his glasses, and the few odd treasures he'd been stockpiling all his life. Under the bedroll lay the sword of Afushonmarron. He'd almost forgotten he had it, but if law enforcement was in his future.  
  
Tying the sheath into his belt and the sack he'd made out of the cloak over his shoulders, Marron clambered down. Chaos still reigned below, so he wandered outside. The day looked much brighter, even though it was overcast and chilly.  
  
"Morning Marron."  
  
"Morning, Danub."  
  
"Don't let Gateau hear you say that."  
  
"He's been making a point of not hearing me lately."  
  
Éclair shrugged. "I don't think you hurt him much telling him to back off, but he's always sort of enjoyed being offended."  
  
"I've noticed."  
  
She changed the subject. "You look sort of different."  
  
"Do I?"  
  
"You've been kind of depressed lately. Quite honestly, you still are, but you look a little better."  
  
"Thanks. I think."  
  
She shrugged and kept walking. Marron wondered vaguely if she and her brother were involved in his father's scheme. He sort of hoped not. Gateau would be nice to get away from permanently.  
  
~~~ "Ready, Marron?"  
  
"I've been ready for three days."  
  
Tira looked rather taken aback by the one pillar of constancy ever to grace her life decided to show annoyance, but kept her stride. "Isn't this exciting?"  
  
"It was a lot more so three days ago." Without waiting for his sister-in- law's reaction, Marron stood and strode out to where the entire town seemed to have turned out to see the Glaces off to their new life. The slight thrill he'd felt at the prospect of action, however ill-advised, had all but vanished as the specified three days of preparations had left the prospect as droning as anything the past few years had been. He was starting to think he had something significantly wrong upstairs, and constant daydreams (and nightdreams, usually even more disturbing) about Croissant seemed to support the theory.  
  
While his various relations bade farewells, he mulled. I've sensed ghosts before. Is he haunting me and I haven't realized? But I can't do magic anymore. At least I shouldn't be able to. Are ghosts magical? Would they be gone, then?  
  
"Marron! Come on, we're leaving!"  
  
He snapped out of his reverie, which wasn't making much sense anyway, and hurried after Chocolate. "Coming."  
  
Rather ambiguous chapter ending, I know. The action comes soon. Anyway, as you may have noticed, Marron is acting very out of character. That's kinda the point for the moment, and just to attest that this kind of sudden turnaround is possible, I've got a similar depression streak going now. There's nothing like being the perfect, favorite, model one to drain every particle of hope, happiness, and coherence out of you. No one wants to hear about my emotional crisis, but just in Marron's defense and mine. Lastly, I beg you kind people for reviews. They reaffirm my bleak existence. 


End file.
